Monday, September 11, 2006

Duty Calls

Here’s a bit on Quantico, Virginia, where I’ve been for the past few days. I’m here on a boring military conference but there were a few highlights.

First, my fellow Marine officers and I went out to a restaurant called the Globe & Laurel just off base. It’s run by a retired Marine Major who knows more about the Corps than anyone I’ve ever met. Every square inch of wall space is taken up by memorabilia of some type. Just about any notable Marine for the past fifty years has given something to him. There are unit patches all over the ceiling and shadow boxes with all sorts of doodads in them. The place is really amazing and the Major can talk forever. We were there for an hour and a half listening to him and he barely took a breath. Fun stuff.

The other Really Cool Thing was a quick trip to the National Archives where the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are displayed. The Declaration is faded and wrinkled now and mostly illegible but if you’re an American and you don’t get choked up while looking at it then there is something wrong with you.

But since this is a writing blog, I'll give an update on my current works. 'Skyman' is my latest fantasy and that got a good rewrite. I'm sending it off to my beta reader (the best in the free or oppressed worlds) very soon. 'Right of Replacement', my Christ allegory, also got a rewrite and polish. So the trip was not a complete loss after all.